


bluebird

by Alectrona (DreamyRequiem)



Series: strelitziaceae [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, also i think i'm fudging up stre's back story fro during the war, headcanons treated as fact, pls have my personal thoughts on what the f is going on in kh chi because otherwise i'm confused, stre is unconsciously super gay for kairi, what the heck is going on, yet i'm kinda confused by the story like r they still in the realm of sleep or were they ever there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-30 09:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12105471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamyRequiem/pseuds/Alectrona
Summary: blue birds are a sign of happiness, of joy. Strelitzia wasn't sure she deserved a future of happiness or joy. Kairi begged to differ.sequel of sorts to paradise





	bluebird

**Author's Note:**

> my kairi is manga kairi fite me
> 
> also i figure stre would be super guilty about. not being dead. which is dumb but whoops ptsd and survivor's guilt r killer

Strelitzia hummed to herself as she tugged the bandages tighter around Kairi's hands. "I'm still sorry, Kairi. I didn't mean to reflect the fire at you like that." She hadn't even thought her shield spell would be strong enough to reflect it: her shields usually absorbed spells, not reflected.

Kairi laughed, showing no sign of pain. "Hey, it's fine! I'm just glad you're not treating me like a kid--Riku or Sora would probably be freaking out right now."

She flushed, focusing her gaze of Kairi's soft hands: Strelitzia had freaked out, actually. She just tended to freak out very quietly. That was one perk, she mused, to being as timid as she was. On the other hand...well, if she panicked and no one knew, how could they help?

Besides, her being timid and quiet had almost gotten her killed once. It's not all fun and games.

A hand touched her face. "Hey?" Strelitzia looked up to meet Kairi's concerned gaze. "I lost you to your thoughts, again, Stre. What's up?"

Strelitzia flushed deeper. She was probably as red as a lobster--though she couldn't be sure. It's not as if there was a mirror for her to check what she looked like.

"It's nothing. I was just--thinking, like you said." Strelitzia smiled softly. She reached up with her free hand and took Kairi's and with her own. "Do you want to go back to our training or should we take a break?"

Kairi hummed, her head tilted. "I think maybe we should take a break for a bit. We used a lot of our magic reserves and I think we were trying to save ethers...?" Strelitzia nodded. "Alright, then let's take break while our mana recharges."

She nodded and Kairi stood, her hands slipping from hers. Strelitzia stared at Kairi's as she retreated further into Yen Sid's Tower. Kairi's kindness--it reminded her of them, the one keyblader she had practically died for.

How could she tell Kairi that part of the reason she had managed to get herself to talk with her had been born from her regrets of never speaking with them? Of never having the courage to stand up and speak for herself?

Strelitzia wondered if Kairi even knew how much that all this meant to her.

Something nudged her hand, breaking her out of her thoughts. Looking down, Strelitzia saw her Chirithy, who was looking up at her. Her little one had not yet spoken since he had regained this form, but he was also still recovering.

Just like she still was.

"Come on." She breathed. "Let's get up to the Tower before Kairi misses us, okay?" Strelitzia stood, stopping only to kneel down and pick up her partner. Once nestled within her arms, Strelitzia took a deep breath and walked back into the source of her anxiety.

It was time she told them everything she knew.

* * *

"I'm not ready."

Strelitzia stared at her hands, terror seizing her heart. She didn't want to talk about the War--but she had told herself she'd tell them. How could she back out of something like that, even if she hadn't promised them specifically about it?

Or...She supposed it was more like she was letting herself down if she backed out of this. Making her regret things even more than she already did. Could she really handle that?

She looked down at Chirithy. "I don't think I'll ever be ready, Chirithy. But what do you think I should do? Should I do it, even if I'm not ready, or should I keep waiting?" The little creature looked up at her before reaching up and patting her cheek.

"...Thanks, Chirithy." Strelitzia pet her partner's hand, savoring the feeling of the dream eater's soft fur against her hand. His ears flicked against the movement of her hand and she laughed as it tickled the inside of her hand.

Chirithy made a humming noise and Strelitzia smiled. "I guess I should get going, huh? Its time I finish this."

Her feet stumbled as she made her way to Yen Sid's tower, taking the short cuts Kairi had shown her to avoid the rooms with the lux hunter illusions--ah, heartless illusions. She kept forgetting they had a different name in this...era, world.

She paused outside the door, her hand raised. Knock, you moron, knock. Strelitzia took a deep breath and then forced her arm to knock as hard as she could. It was hard enough that her knuckles stung from the series of knocks.

Distantly, she heard Yen Sid's voice calling for her to come in. She hesitated for a moment before opening the door. Inside the office, Yen Sid sat at his desk, a book open on it. Kairi was peering out of the side room, a curious expression on her face.

"Stre? What are you doing here?" Kairi asked, confused. "I thought you were out training still?"

Strelitzia flushed but swallowed her embarrassment: She had been out training--Frustatedly attacking the dummies to try and get rid of her fear. It hadn't worked but she had still done her best to get it all out.

"I...I want to talk about how I got into the pods, now. And everything that happened before and after." That sounded ominous to her--but then, she would be talking about a war that had taken the lives of thousands. It deserved to be a little ominous.

Kairi fully stepped into the room, closing the door of the side room. She was thankful to the show of concern from Kairi but she needed to focus on the story she wanted to tell them.

A story of history.

"This is really hard for me to talk about." She whispered. "When I think about it all--I can't help but remember all the bodies and keyblades left behind--the hearts in the sky. I didn't even fight--but I still saw every second of it."

Finally, she had Yen Sid's undivided attention as the old master closed the book on his desk. Strelitzia wasn't sure if she was happy about that or not."

She clasped her hands. "Please understand. Before, in the beginning, we were just keyblade wielders following our Union Leaders' orders. They were the bare minimum--collect lux, ensure the balance of the world--but they were our orders and we were meant to follow them.

"But eventually those orders weren't good enough anymore. Our leaders began to fight amongst themselves and we who followed them began to suffer too. Master Ava tried to stop the fighting by creating what she called the Dandelions. It only slowed down all the fighting between the Unions."

Before her eyes, she could see it all again. Daybreak Town and the other wielders what wondered it, delighted to exist. The lux hunters they slew and the friends they made in their unions--and other unions too, in the case of the Dandelions.

"Master Ava tried to stop the War. But she couldn't, not even her. Our masters turned their keyblades on each other and so too did the Unions that followed them. And then Master Ava ordered the Dandelions to flee. Told us of a way to avoid the fighting, so that we could be free to seek our dreams in the future."

She swallowed.

Master Ava, her hand outstretched as she ordered them to flee to the world outside, to the Realm of Sleep. The Unions facing down one another in a wasteland of silence.

"And then the fighting started. People fell, and there were hearts everywhere. You couldn't look anywhere without seeing a Keyblade hitting the ground as its wielder died. And I--I fled before the fighting ended. I didn't lift my keyblade against a single other wielder but I--!"

Her eyes itched, tears beginning to slide down her face. "If I had stopped people from fighting, and convinced them to stop. Maybe there would be more wielders today instead of there being so few. I should've done something more.

"...But I didn't. I ran, to the pods in the castle that the Master of Masters had claimed as his own, once. I hid and I let myself fall asleep. When I woke up, it was the beginning again, before the war and before the pain. But it didn't change the fact that so many wielders were dead."

Strelitzia closed her eye, hoping it would help stem the itch. She didn't want to see their enraptured faces.

"I almost forgot it wasn't the real world anymore. It didn't occur to me that it wasn't--not until I found out someone who wasn't a Dandelion was there. Then I remembered--the duty Master Ava gave me. I was supposed to be one of the five leaders to replace the former Union leaders: Master Ava had even given me a book to show proof.

"I went to where I thought the non Dandelion was--I wanted to get them to join. If they did than we weren't breaking Master Ava's rules. But I never even had a chance to speak to them."

Unconsciously, Strelitzia put a hand over where she knew her scar was. The wound that she had cared from her dreams into reality--the wound that she had almost let kill her.

"Someone killed me in the dream and stole the book Master Ava had entrusted to me. The next I woke...Kairi was there, healing me with all her power."

She fell silent, unable to continue. Maybe she hadn't gone into too much detail but--she didn't think she was up to that right now. Maybe later, when she finally came to terms with the fact that even the other Dandelions might be long gone too.

And then Kairi's arms were around her and Strelitzia let herself sob.

* * *

It had been two days since Strelitzia had told them about her past--about the past of all keyblade wielders of her time. Since then, only Yen Sid had asked many questions. Kairi, on the other hand...

She was acting as if nothing had changed. Sure, she had hugged her after the story, when Strelitizia began sobbing and making a mess, but she had made no more mention of the whole thing since. She didn't know if that made her happy or not. Sure, the heavy weight on her chest felt...lesser now.

Maybe she should confront her on it--but at the same time she didn't have the energy to. Talking about her past had taken almost all of her energy, energy she was still trying to regain.

Strelitzia stood, her hands clasped. She could train but not talk to Kairi? How stupid and ridiculous.

Her Chirithy, almost recovered enough to talk, leapt into her arms. She didn't even look as she caught him deftly, turning from the many dummies both broken and in one piece. If she could train than she could talk to Kairi--even if part of her worried about it.

Kairi was in the second of the studies the floor below Yen Sid's private office. The other keyblade wielder was curled up on the window seat, her eyes flicking slowly back and forth over the pages of a book clasped in her hands. Emblazoned on the cover was the title 'Magic: Healing'.

What a straight forward title.

Strelitzia cleared her throat, her hands clasped over her chest as Chirithy leapt to the ground next to her. Kairi's head snapped up and she started in startled surprised. "Stre? What're you...I thought you were still training."

"I was." She admitted, biting her lip. "But...I figured I needed to talk to you, Kairi. We haven't really talked about what happened a couple days ago..."

The atmosphere, previously calm if somewhat awkward, turned full out awkward and she winced. Foot, meet mouth. Where had her sense of tact gone? Seriously, she should've been less blunt about that.

Kairi sat up, closing the book in her hands and leaving it on her lap. She watched Strelitzia for a few moments, leaving the almost leader shifting from foot to foot nervously. "...Stre, I didn't want to talk about it because it seemed like too much to talk about after that," Kairi said, her voice soft.

So she was trying to be considerate--that was what Strelitzia had thought. And yet...

"And if I wanted to talk to you about it?" She challenged the other girl, feeling oddly embolden.

The red head narrowed her eyes before shifting, her feet hitting the floor of the study. "Well, I figured you'd come to me to talk about it if you did." Which, technically, she had.

Kairi tilted her head. "So? Do you want to talk about it?"

Strelitzia paused and then let her shoulders slump. "I...don't really know. It's not like there's a lot for me talk about, besides me being a coward--"

She started as Kairi got to her feet. The other girl had her hands on her hip and was staring at Strelitzia sternly. "Coward? Are you kidding me?" She demanded. "You're not much older than me--and you've been fighting as a keyblade wielder for even longer than Sora has. Plus, you were in the middle of a war--No one is going to blame you for following your orders and leaving when you were told to."

And she somehow managed to get right to heart of the problem. Because as far as Strelitzia was concerned, if she hadn't let, less people might be dead. Hell, maybe she could've dragged some of the few friends she'd managed to make outside of the Dandelions with her if she had just looked for them.

"I could've done something more than just stare and run!" Strelitzia burst out, her eyes burning. "I just stared and ran while my friends and hundreds of others fought each other to the death over nothing! I could've done something!"

Kairi stepped forward but Strelitzia didn't let her speak, cutting in before she could even open her mouth. "I could've done so much more--and I did nothing. I helped no one, saved no one, and yet I'm still here. What exactly did I do to deserve to still exist!?"

Strelitzia closed her eyes, unwilling to look at Kairi. Her chest felt heavier than ever, like someone was clawing at her insides and trying to drag her down to the earth. She wanted to run--when she felt a hand curl around hers.

"Someone doesn't need to do anything to deserve to live, Strelitzia, or to exist. You don't need to do anything, except what you feel you need to do." Kairi's voice was gentle. "You just have to be you. And I think you're doing a terrific job of being yourself."

She opened her eyes and looked up at Kairi. She had a beatific smile, her hand clasping hers. Strelitzia looked down at their joined hands and swallowed: She had felt so guilty about being the few alive--the few up, and moving around the world once more, that she hadn't even thought that maybe it was alright for her to be okay.

And then she thought: Maybe she didn't have to be.

"Kairi. I want--There's something I want to do." Strelitzia looked back up to meet Kairi's gaze. "And I don't know if I can do it alone. Will you...come with me?"

A grin stretched from ear to ear.

"Hell yeah I'll come!"

**Author's Note:**

> also yes my kairi swears. fite me more
> 
> and u know what this gives kairi something to do during KH while sora and riku r off doing their own things. kairi off to rescue other pod kids i mean what


End file.
